In Death Veritas: A Collection of Short Stories

In Death Veritas is Zaher Alajlani’s first serious attempt at short story writing. In a symbolic fashion, the author uses the supernatural in order to shed light on the human condition and the futility of existence without love and compassion. The stories of the collection mostly feature melancholic protagonists who, in a failed attempt to transcend their human limitations, abandon their goodness in order to interact with demonic beings. In Death Veritas, the first story of the collection, tells the tale of a nameless figure whose pursuit of a raucous and debauched lifestyle robs him of his will to live. The second short story, Escape, addresses the issue of the impossibility of maintaining one’s humanity without rising above senseless violence. Necrosis then narrates the story of a depressed man whose manic pursuit of power and obsession with evil drive him to human sacrifice, an act that has a catastrophic impact on determining his fate.